Daily Maintenance for Wellbeing Based on 12 Steps

The 12-step programme helped me recover from addiction and I still do my best to work that programme in my everyday life. Because of these steps, my life has been transformed. I have often been asked about them, so I thought this would be my focus in this week’s blog. Looking at how I incorporate them into my everyday life as a form of daily maintenance.

The first and most crucial step for me, involved me admitting that I am powerless over alcohol addiction and that my life had become unmanageable. A process of overcoming denial.

Today I revisit this step as daily maintenance when I choose not to take a drink of alcohol one day at a time. I want to stay well and each day I choose not to take the risk of trying drinking again. I do not want to go back to the way I was 34 years ago. I am accountable for my behaviour on a daily basis.

The second and third steps involved me developing some kind of faith in a benevolent power that is greater than myself.

What this means to me, in terms of daily maintenance is that a life of humility is essential to my daily well-being. I am not omnipotent and the world does not revolve around me.

The fourth and fifth steps advised me to make a searching and fearless moral inventory of myself, and then share this with another human being.

I needed to make some radical changes for my recovery to happen. I had made a mess of my life in the throes of addiction. I took a long hard and honest look at myself - who I had been, who I was now, and who I would like to be. Where did I need to make changes?

Sharing this with someone that I trusted, reduced the power that the past had over me and offered a freedom from the fearful secrets I had been ashamed to admit to myself. I felt a level of exhilaration that was beyond belief. I felt full of hope and courage for the future. Special moments I will always remember.

As daily maintenance I use this practice to take stock of myself and continue my healing. Becoming aware of my strengths, limitations, my attitudes, beliefs and values – the principles I choose to live by. I do my best to be as open, honest and trustworthy as I can be, in order to create a life that befits a human being.

Steps six and seven, eight and nine are about taking action to make the necessary changes that would allow me to maintain my sobriety on a daily basis. Focus on my strengths and assets – what works for me and diminish the blocks that have potential to harm me. Asking for help from those wiser than me with the bits that I could not accomplish alone.  

Eight and Nine in particular are crucial action steps which involved me making a list of all persons I had harmed in some way with my selfish behaviour and making amends, where possible. I have done many things I am not proud of and where possible I have made suitable amends to those people who have suffered as a result.

This again is something I continue to do on a daily basis. The important thing here is that I do my best not to repeat the mistakes I have made. Once again, I seek counsel from my mentors to prevent me slipping back into the habit of denial. Amends can be made as part of my daily maintenance except as the steps say where this would cause harm to them or others.

Ten, Eleven and Twelve are about the importance of crucial daily maintenance as I move forward each day. I continue to take a daily personal inventory and when I am wrong, I promptly admit it. I strengthen the spiritual side of my life and do my best to practice these principles in all my affairs, making wiser healthier choices that benefit myself and my community.

For me, these steps are incorporated in the Serenity prayer – ‘Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.’

I hope that this has given you some insight into the 12-step programme and also that you have found some suggestions for yourself that you can incorporate into your daily maintenance for well-being.

Author of ‘Wearing Red, One Woman’s Journey to Sanity’

Available at www.amazon.co.uk and www.browndogbooks.uk